Vladimir Denisov

I

n December 2002 works were completed on adapting the last 175-km section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad (Trans-Sib) in the Far East to electric power. Thus, the Trans-Siberian Railroad has now been fully transferred to the use of electric traction. The first train of 42 flatcars with containers destined for Western Europe has already passed through the new electrified section. These containers started the journey at the Nakhodka depot on the Pacific coast and rushed across Russia to the Buslovskaya depot on the country’s western border, from where they were sent to countries of the European Union.
As Russia’s minister of railways Gennady Fadeyev said, from now on the Trans-Siberian Railroad fully conforms to high international standards of speed, safety, security and attractiveness of tariffs on their haulage.
Trans-Sib spans 7,000 km from the East to the West and the total length of the transit passageway from the Pacific to Russia’s western borders amounts to 10,000 km. Its engineering potential makes it possible to transport 100 million tons of freight a year. Now about 1,000 freight and passenger long-distance trains are using this trunk line daily.
South Korea is one of the largest exporters of products to countries of Europe. So far, however, freight transportation between this peninsula-located country and the Eurasian mainland is carried out by sea. The only overland route via North Korea remained sealed for half a century. With the resumption of a diplomatic dialogue between Pyongyang and Seoul in 2000 it became possible to restore railroading between the two parts of the Korean Peninsula and link the Trans-Korean Railroad with Trans-Sib and, through it, with the whole network of Russia’s railroads.
All three participating countries should considerably benefit from the project’s implementation. As far as South Korean cargo owners are concerned, the time needed to transport freight to Europe will be reduced from between 30 and 45 days down to 15 days. This will allow them to save up to $300 per each freight container. By providing a transport corridor North Korea, in its turn, will be getting about $1.5 billion in annual profit from the transit freight flow. It is expected that, as a result of increasing volumes of transit shipping operations through Trans-Sib from 45,000 20-feet containers at present to 500,000 to 600,000 containers in the future, Russia’s receipts from transit will grow two to three times as much. Under this project Russia’s Ministry of Railways plans to start using Trans-Sib for high-speed trains with a special schedule that will rule out any reloading and grading of containers.
Russia, North and South Koreas intend to make customs procedures for cargo owners uniform and much simpler.
To connect South Korea’s railroad network with Trans-Sib it is necessary to reconstruct the North Korean part of the trunk line. The Russian side expressed its willingness to invest in modernizing track facilities and developing the infrastructure of the line on the North Korean territory, from the border with South Korea to the Hyesan-Tumangang border passage. Reconstructing the line and connecting the Trans-Korean trunk line with Trans-Sib will take about 3 years. Estimates of specialists with Russia’s Ministry of Railways show that expenses on these works will be recouped in a short period of time.
The agreement on linking railroads of two Koreas and Russia as well as on Russia’s participation in reconstruction of the North Korean section of the trunk line was reached during the visit of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Il to Russia in the summer of 2001. In his meetings with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin both sides decided that the trunk line would go from the settlement of Tumangang on the North Korean border with Russia via the seaport of Wonsan to Pyonggang located in the immediate vicinity of the Demilitarized Zone dividing the North and the South of the Korean Peninsula.

Trans-Sib. Ruzhino Railway Station, 8,931 km. The first electric locomotive container train is going to the west

However, this apparently advantageous project does not have a general support in Russia. For example, the head of the Khabarovsk regional administration Victor Ishaev spoke out against implementing these plans. In his opinion, connecting two trunk lines would be profitable only for South Korea because its major seaport of Pusan is capable of processing cargo dozens of times as much as all Russian Far Eastern ports of Vladivostok, Nakhodka, Sovetskaya Gavan and Vanino. Instead, Viktor Ishaev proposes to make investments in development of Russian ports on the Pacific coast: to build new terminals, to modernize the infrastructure and to raise the level of service. He believes that in this case Russia itself will be able to handle much more transit cargo and transport it further by Trans-Sib.
President Putin had the final word in the discussion. He confirmed that plans to link the Trans-Korean trunk line and Trans-Sib would be implemented. "If we do not do it, others will do and they will do it in another place, particularly, China, our respected partner, who will get to Trans-Sib in any case. But for all that a considerable section of the trunk line in the Far East will become inoperative", said Vladimir Putin.
In this connection it is worth recalling that China already proposed to North Korea three routes via its territory, i.e. bypassing Russia’s Primorsky Territory, and expressed willingness to finance all necessary works. But to North Korea Russia turned out to be a preferable partner.
In the fall of 2002 Russian specialists – prospectors, designers, railroad engineers, bridge-testers – started working in North Korea. After inspecting the route of the future Trans-Korean trunk line they submitted to Russia’s minister of railways Gennady Fadeyev and North Korean minister of the country’s railroads Kim En Sam three options to reconstruct the line: adjusting the track gauge of the trunk line to the Russian standard, constructing a gauge to match both international and Russian standards or keeping the international standard of the gauge intact. The heads of Railroad Ministries of the two countries jointly decided to accept the third option. By experts’ estimates, not only such a reconstruction will be cheaper by over 30%, but also terms of its implementation will be several times as short.
Projects aimed at increasing the share of Russia’s railroads in the world market of transportation are assigned a special importance in the investment program of the Ministry of Railways. In 2002 the total transit haulage via Russia increased 11% against 2001. And the Trans-Siberian trunk line creates the most favorable conditions for further growth. Loading transport corridors benefited from reconstruction of the existing transfer junctions of railroads and ports as well as building of the new ones in St. Petersburg and Ust-Lug on the Baltic Sea and in Novorossyisk on the Black Sea. Because of this the East-West transit haulage rose in 2002 by almost 40 %.
The 2003 budget of the Ministry of Railways adopted by the Russian government provides for considerable investments amounting to 126 billion rubles (more than $4B). Of which 11 billion rubles will be spent on reinforcing approaches to seaports.
Russia’s Ministry of Railways and Vneshtorgbank signed an agreement to draw both national and international credits for financing investment projects. Minister Gennady Fadeyev is known as a cautious borrower, so if even he agrees to credits, it means that envisaged profits will certainly be on the high side.